This invention relates in general to the manufacture of textile goods and in particular to a method and apparatus for forming synthetic fiber-filled articles, such as quilts, comforters, and sleeping bags.
In their earlier stages of fabrication material-filled articles, such as sleeping bags, comforters and quilts were filled with materials such as down and natural fiber. Recently, however, it has been discovered that such articles can be more easily and inexpensively fabricated with synthetic fiber materials. The use of these conventionally prepared synthetic fibers imparts to such an article advantages in the areas of reduced weight, ease in washability, and expense. High bulk synthetic materials, such as these, have been conventionally producible in great volume through automatic machinery and have been able to impart to the quilted article, the characteristics of warmth for the user and softness.
The synthetic fiber material is conventionally produced in continuous fibers by fiber-generating equipment. Thousands of these fiber strands are then crimped together after they are spun, then cut in lengths of a few inches so as to approximate the texture and length of natural fibers so that these synthetic fibers can then be processed by existing machinery originally designed to process the natural fiber materials. Thus, the newer continuously spun synthetic materials were given the characteristics of natural fibers so that natural fiber fabricating machinery could continue processing these materials into filler for the articles herein described.
Even more recently, continuous strand synthetic fibers have been utilized as an article-filling substance without the necessity of the preliminary step of shearing the synthetic fibers so as to appropriately imitate the characteristics of natural fibers. One such conventional practice utilizes a "crimped" tow of continuous synthetic filament in which the orientation of the composite fibers is broken up so that the crimps no longer nest in the same position as to where they were placed. This is usually performed through the use of an air spray which flattens an initial emanating tow of continuous tow as disclosed in Watson, U.S.Pat. No. 3,681,796. After this operation, the continuous crimped tow is layered in a crosslap which must be sprayed in a latex or other coating spray, then trimmed and rolled. The spraying process is performed to restrain the orientation of the synthetic bundles of fibers and to thus avoid shifting or piling, or bulking at a particular point in the article in which the synthetic fiber material is urged.
Only at this stage, after the synthetic fibers have been totally processed, can the bulk synthetic material or fiber bundles be sandwiched between layers of article fabric, at which time the fiber material is restrained into pockets formed by stitching so as to further reduce shifting of the filler in conventional quilting operations while maintaining the thickness of the filler in a homogenous manner.
An even more recent apparatus and process for making quilted articles is disclosed in Lipe, U.S.Pat. No.3,673,036. In this particular process crimped multi-filament tow is opened, spread, and delivered to pneumatic propelling devices which discharge the tow without further processing into a pre-sewn and pocketed quilt shell. After the proper amount of filler fibers have been delivered, the open ends of the pre-formed package are sewn shut so as to yield an article of quilted construction without intermediate shearing, without placement into natural fiber equipment and without the necessity for layering, spraying and sewing after the fiber filler is sandwiched between the outer sheets of the article fabric. But even this method has its drawbacks in that the conventional fabrication techniques for the actual attachment of the article's exposed material must be followed before the emanating two is inserted, consisting of the sewing of the two outer layers, prior to the fiber filling operation. The process requires the simultaneous operations of tow fabrication and article filling. Similarly, the fiber filling processing operation must be started and stopped for every separate article between the fiber filling and quilt sealing operations, thus reducing the productivity of the overall operation.
In yet other quilt filling methods, batts must be formed of a plurality of emanating synthetic tows towards use in an article as disclosed in Gamble U.S. Pat. No.3,071,783. It is thus an object of the present invention to utilize a continuous emanating crimped synthetic fiber tow without the intermediary operations of cutting, disorientating, layering, and spraying.
It is further an object of the present invention to allow the manufacture of a continuous length of fabricsurrounded synthetic crimped two approximating a narrow quilted column which can thereafter be combined with other severed quilt columns to fabricate a quilted article without combining a plurality of tows in a batt preliminary to the filling operation.
It is also an object of the present invention to either securely restrain an encapsulated synthetic tow within a preliminary sleeve, or enable utilization of the unprocessed tow directly into an article while avoiding the bunching, bulking or shifting of the continuous fibers within the tow, and at the same time facilitating the placement of such continuous tow fiber filler within a quilted article.
Additionally, it is an object of the present invention to enable production of the tow in a usable manner at a high rate of fabrication which is easy to handle when the article is eventually prepared and which lacks the undesirable characteristics of conventional sprayed fiber fillers, which often comprise reduced expanding qualities, stiffness, and poor draping effects.
Further, it is an object of the invention to utilize novel tow packaging and containment concepts in a somewhat similar manner to the containment and pillow formation concepts set forth in my earlier invention, U.S. Pat. No. 3,878,873, to enable manufacture of the tow and then subsequent fabrication of the fiber-filled articles apart from the manufacturing process after the tow has been transported to the destination at which fabrication is being performed. The method for packaging and containment herein disclosed is utilized for the objects of efficiently packaging a substantial quantity of the bulky tow in a minimum of packaging space while at the same time avoiding the permanent crushing or deformation of the tow so that the tow has nearly its original shape, bulk and resilience after removal from its packaging container.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent as herein disclosed.